


Starting Over

by titC



Category: Daredevil (TV), The Defenders (Marvel TV)
Genre: Gen, musings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-12
Updated: 2020-09-12
Packaged: 2021-03-05 21:15:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,526
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25651957
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/titC/pseuds/titC
Summary: Claire ponders her future, what she wants to make of it, and the people she's met on her way.
Comments: 8
Kudos: 19
Collections: Daredevil and Defenders Exchange 2020





	Starting Over

**Author's Note:**

> Big thanks to [PixelByPixel](https://archiveofourown.org/users/PixelByPixel/pseuds/PixelByPixel) for betaing and hand-holding!
> 
> And, uh. The time line is probably a bit fudged. Just... go with it? :D
> 
> Written for Daredevil Exchange 2020 from [FunkyBetsy](https://funkybetsy.tumblr.com/)'s prompt [Uninvited Guest](https://genius.com/Disturbed-uninvited-guest-lyrics) by Disturbed. Gave me an idea... and the fic itself veered from the original idea, although the seed is still there ;-)

After Midland Circle, Claire couldn’t really help feeling like someone, something, should have been able to stop Matt. How was it that he’d chosen certain death over life? She’d always thought Foggy would tether him to the land of the living and the sane but since their falling out, Matt had unraveled. It was obvious, in hindsight.

But she was a nurse: throughout her career, she’d seen a lot of patients in the ER, and in so many states of emotional and psychological distress. So she’d learned to compartmentalize; you had to, when you had a job like hers, and she’d had so much going on in her life at that time… She could only be pulled in so many directions, so she’d chosen to keep some distance from him. Not because she hadn’t cared, oh no: because she knew she’d care too much, if she let whatever could have been between them develop.

She’d done her best to safeguard her own well-being, and she didn’t regret her choice: it had been the rational one. She had much to offer; she was good at her job and she was learning new skills all the time. She had her family, her friends, and she hadn’t wanted to find herself pulled into the craziness and heartache of the Masked Man.

But she had, in the end. His craziness, Jessica’s, Danny’s… and Luke’s. Everything she’d told herself to be wary of had happened.

And now there she was: single again, without a job, most of her stuff back at her mother’s, and looking at headlines on the TV set high up on the wall of the coffee shop where she’d taken refuge to escape her mother’s worried questions.

 _Daredevil is back,_ the words scrolling at the bottom of the screen read. _Instrumental in taking down Fisk_ , they said, _Back after being thought dead for months_ , and _Hell’s Kitchen protector prowls roofs again_. She stared at the TV and Matt’s blurry silhouette. He looked thinner without the suit and his moves weren’t as acrobatic as she remembered, but most of all he looked _alive_. How…?

Maybe she should try going to church again; it looked like faith had worked for him. And if she just happened to find him there instead of God, then she’d shake some answers out of him.

She didn’t find Matt at the church, of course, but she learned about the priest who’d been killed while two Daredevils had been trading blows in and around the aisle and the parishioners themselves; a woman who’d been there said it had been a brutal fight. There were still broken pieces of wood in a corner, probably from pews.

“Father Lantom, bless his heart, died right there,” the woman said pointing at the altar. “He wasn’t one of them heroes,” she added. “I don’t know how these people can get up and walk away from what they do to each other, but I guess God is with them. Well, with our Daredevil, at least; I heard the other one won’t walk again.”

Claire shuddered. She shouldn't have come, she thought as she walked away from the church; this was the first step in becoming involved again, and she didn’t want to. If she knew what was good for her, she… oh, who was she kidding? She was in too deep; Colleen, Jess, Danny… they were her friends. She’d been there for them, done her best to heal them, and she’d do it all over again. Things hadn’t worked out like she’d hoped with Luke, but it didn’t mean she wouldn't open her door to him if he knocked asking for help. That was who she was, and the point wasn’t to cut them out of her life. She just needed to find a better balance, that was all.

Matt, she knew, was a prime example of what _not_ to do; for as long as she’d known him he’d always gone too far, pushed himself too much. He’d always wanted to juggle everything only to have it all collapse around his ears: his friendships, his day job, his night one, his own health… right up to the point when an actual building had collapsed on him.

But Matt had also been the first one to crash through her normal, regular life to bleed and almost die on her couch. He’d been her first encounter with that particular breed of people who used strength, smarts, and violence in the dark of night to do what she did with needles and bandages, but he also was the one with no super strength, mystical powers, or accelerated healing. And yet that never stopped him, and she suspected it even spurred him on. He’d always been a little too unafraid to die, although sometimes it verged on the suicidal. Damn, that first time they’d met… she’d just fished him out of a dumpster and stabbed him with a needle so he didn't die of a pneumothorax, and what did he do next? She shook her head at the memory. He’d been lucky he lived, but yeah, he got that kid. Brought him back, physically unharmed if terrified, while Matt himself had still been (mostly) upright only out of pride and stubbornness. 

Maybe that woman in the church was right: God was with him. And Claire had to make up her mind: did she want to take a step back from the world of her friends, stay on the fringes and be their confidante and ( _Let’s be real_ , she thought) occasional nurse, or was she ready to fully commit to the insanity of their lives and accept that she’d be dragged into it again and again? She’d vowed not to just a few days ago, after all.

But… could she, really? Could she forget all that she’d experienced with them, all she’d learned and seen? Could she ignore what her gut told her – that they’d need her, yes, but also that her life had changed and she didn’t actually want to go back to how it was before, even if she could? Could she pretend that she wouldn't be, well, bored?

Her feet had taken her to a small park and she sat on the first bench she found. The sky above her was a clear blue; it was too easy to forget what daytime was like sometimes. Too many night shifts, too much running around after _certain people_ at night… but it was because of them, too, that Claire could hear the kids laughing and playing happily behind her. Mind control, drugs, mafias… she, too, wanted to do her part in keeping all that crap as far away as possible.

 _Well_ , she thought at a wispy cloud drifting past. _Looks like it’s not much of a choice, then._ She’d chosen to be a nurse to help, to be useful, and that hadn’t changed. It ran in her veins, and she’d find a way to keep on doing that.

She was scrolling through job ads on her phone when a little flier left on the table next to hers caught her eye. _Nelson, Murdock, and Page,_ it said. _Attorneys at Law and Investigation._ The flier gave an email, a phone number, and an… well, not quite an address: _Temporary offices at Nelson’s Meats_. Of course. Whatever happened, Foggy and Matt would always remain true to the Kitchen.

 _Our_ Daredevil, the woman at the church had said; she hadn’t been wrong. Hell’s Kitchen had made Matt and Daredevil, and maybe (probably) it would kill him. He thought the city needed him, but Claire knew better. The city had created him and used him, and it would milk every drop of life out of him until he was dry and dead if he let it. Which he would, unless he remembered he was a person too, and not only a conduit for justice or however he thought of his vigilantism. But he had friends, a job, people who valued him outside of Daredevil.

She wondered what state of mind he was in now: fresh from putting Fisk back in prison, probably riding the high of victory and reuniting with his friends… while Claire was feeling adrift and wasn’t quite sure who to turn to. She needed to find her feet again, her place in the world after too much upheaval. 

She didn’t want to see Luke right now and she’d fallen out of touch with most people she’d known back when she’d still been at Metro General, but she still needed a boost. Kindness, appreciation for her value, validation; maybe some feel-good flirting to prove to herself she still had it… yeah, she wasn’t kidding anyone, was she? She closed the app and left the coffee shop.

Claire knew what she wanted to do and who could help her make a difference for the better with her skills; she knew who could give her a hand with money, connections, or legal know-how, and she also knew who’d need _her_ help. She, too, had what it took to make that difference; she simply wouldn't be making it with her fists. 

She had her work cut out for her.


End file.
